


Storge

by HoneySempai



Series: A Cord of Three Strands [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Family, Friendship, Multi, Other, Polyamory, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Threesome - F/F/M, Threesome - F/M/M, dad jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 04:06:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14417316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoneySempai/pseuds/HoneySempai
Summary: After the Triskelion collapse, Natasha checks in with home.(A little drabbly piece written for the Polyship Prompt:Imagine the polyship shipping another polyship)





	Storge

**Author's Note:**

> Been very busy putting the finishing touches on my Cap RBB piece and trying to put together my Cap BB piece, so I just slapped this together for a slight change of pace, and to color in the world outside the hospital in Chapter 5 of _Last of Days_.

“Are you okay, Nat?” Clint asks. 

Natasha shrugs. It was hard to hide the fact that she’s in a hotel room over Skype; their secured line hid them from outside spying, not each other. Hydra—or maybe genuine SHIELD agents, acting under the impression that she’d really turned on them—had rendered her DC apartment unusable, right alongside Sharon’s, and Steve and Peggy’s. “It was a glorified safehouse. I wasn’t attached.”

“Still...” Laura presses, frowning. 

“I didn’t keep anything important there,” Natasha says, running her fingers along the chain around her neck until she balances her fingertips on either end of the arrow charm holding it together. Laura had been so pleased to give that to her for Hanukkah last year; every June the woman tried to pick up some new talent, or revisit some old one, so she could give everyone gifts in that particular craft. She apparently hadn’t made _real_ silver jewelry for a few years. 

Laura blushes a little bit, and Clint takes the time to smirk approvingly before looking serious again. 

“When are you coming back, Nat?”

“The kids really miss you,” Laura tacks on. “Cooper keeps asking if Mama is _really_ okay.”

Natasha takes a moment to appreciate the manipulation, especially since it almost—or rather, somewhat—works. “I’m only staying here until they let Barnes go. I wanna see the three of them settled somewhere safe before I come back.”

Laura gives one of her characteristic smile-frowns. “You’re a good friend, Tish-Tash.”

“You really think they’re gonna let Barnes go free?” Clint asks. 

“Well, if they don’t by themselves, Steve and Peggy are gonna make ‘em.”

Clint and Laura take a moment to absorb the implications of that—most personally troubling, that Natasha could be gone for a very long time if her gambit to release Barnes’s files first, as many as she could find, didn’t pay off. 

“And how are they doing?” Laura asks. 

“Physically, fine. Barnes and Steve are both recovering. Mentally...they’re as well as can be expected.”

“So, not well at all,” Clint mutters. 

Natasha makes a resigned gesture. “I told Steve they need to look into trauma therapy.”

“You think they’re gonna?”

“For Barnes? Absolutely. For themselves? Not so much.”

“I wish they were closer to us,” Laura says. “I’d tell them to go see Brooke. She was so great with us.” She pauses suddenly, her face melting from wistful into stricken. “Nat, she wasn’t...?”

“Brooke was on the to-kill list, don’t worry.” A wry smile can’t help but stretch out Natasha’s mouth. 

“And you really think Barnes is recoverable, Nat?” Clint asks. 

Natasha shrugs. “Depends on if he wants to recover, but it’s possible.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, you and I did it, so _he_ could.”

“That’s good,” Laura says, her expression finally relaxing. “That’s good to hear. Then maybe things can start to turn around for CapCarter, too, eventually. You’re always saying how they’re so unhappy.”

“Well, they’re not precisely happy right now—”

“Oh, of course not.”

“—but Peggy’s never looked as alive as she is being Barnes’ guard dog right now. Not since I’ve known her, at least. Steve’s probably getting better quicker because of it, too.”

“Well we know what that’s like,” Clint says. 

“You certainly do tend to get better quicker when someone’s counting on you,” Laura confirms. 

Natasha nods, and mirrors Laura’s smile-frown. 

“It’s good that you’re looking out for them, Tish-Tash,” Laura continues. “Just look after yourself too, okay?”

“Or pop in some time, let _us_ look after you,” Clint tosses in, faux-conversationally. 

Natasha smiles indulgently. “Soon as I can, I promise.”

“Bring your friends. We’ll double-date. Triple-date?”

“Double-date,” Laura says. “It’s the number of _relationships_ , not the number of people _in_ the relationships.”

“You sure?”

“I’m _positive_.”

“Only fools are positive.”

“You sure?” Natasha and Laura ask at the same time. 

“I’m positive,” Clint says, pulling on an invisible pair of sunglasses. 

Natasha rolls her eyes fondly as Laura elbows her husband. A child’s voice from outside the door, though indistinct, tells Natasha it’s about time to tuck Cooper and Lila into bed. 

“Guys, come say night-night to Mama!” Laura calls, and Natasha can hear the enthusiasm with which one of the kids shoves open their parents’ door, and with which both of them run to do as bade. 

Natasha tries valiantly to listen to both children’s overlapping stories about how their past week has been, mixed in with Laura’s admonishments to calm down and Clint adding to the noise by catching Cooper by the sides and tickling him, and her smile can’t help but have an ironic little hope to it. 

This is what she’d been trying to help Steve and Peggy get their hands on for almost two years now—this kind of noise, the energy of home—to what had felt like no avail.

Maybe now, she internally crosses her fingers; maybe now, with hundreds of documents proving Barnes’ non-complicity making their way across the globe thanks to her quick thinking and even quicker fingers, she’d finally managed to do it.


End file.
